Steve Jobs was not Apple. Steve Jobs was an inventor. Steve Jobs was probably the single greatest inventor to grace the world since Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla.

The personal computer and the smartphone were "telegraph" and "light bulb" moments that forever transformed our world and will only continue to do so. While Steve Jobs was not the only (or even first) person to make these inventions a reality, he will rightly be remembered as the man who truly revolutionized and brought them to ordinary people.

When history remembers Steve Jobs, it will be not as part of Apple, but as one of the world's great minds. We have lost not just one of the icons of the technological world, but one of the greatest contributors to humanity of the last four centuries.

I'm sick of all the "we wouldn't have Android without him"....well, we wouldn't have iOS without Microsoft.

jmb98115

MSFT bailed out Apple to avoid monopoly charges in the 90's. History much?

Jessy

Loool you have to be the dumbiest guy on earth Microsoft bailed out apple in the 90s steve jobs reinvented stuff he never invented anything he refined inventions. Itunes is nothing new programs like that have existed since 1995 and osx is based on BSD kernel so he didn't invent anything there. The first mc computer was invented in Canada in 1979 and Steve jobs was the salesman steve wosniak invented the early make prototypes.

Arsalan

True, there wouldn't be an android if there had been no iphone to compete against

Jeremee

Yeah respect to the man. R.I.P Stevo!

In a strange way I think the 4S sales will go up because of this. Loyalty and sentimental purchases will play a part.

Amazing tribute AP.
On a day when Apple and Android comes together #RIPSteve

sky

life gets the best of us sometimes.. in this case,Steve Jobs..
eh,whatevz ANDROID FTW! ..

A thought

Whether you're religious or not, there is much truth to a couple of verses in the Bible regarding this passing.

"Life is like a vapor which appears for a little while and then vanishes away"

"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul?"

While not trying to push religion down anyone's throat, it would be wise to know that this (death) will happen to all of us and that what kind of life you lead while here on earth is much more important than monetary gain. RIP

Steve Jobs was a great man. And I'm sad he died. He died far too young.

But let's keep real and not exaggerate. Steve Jobs was not an inventor. I can't think of a single Apple product that Apple were the first to think of. However, Steve Jobs more than often successfully had the courage and the serendipity to know which of these ideas actually would be stars on the market. This makes Steve Jobs a brilliant innovator.

I hope that Apple will keep being successful even without Steve Jobs. More than once, it actually required (somebody like) Apple to show the establishment (IBM, Nokia etc.) how their products should have looked like in the first place.

Steve Jobs may have died. But may the spirit of Steve Jobs stay with Apple and direct them - and safe them from the danger of becoming establishment themselves.

This implies that you have to have invented something to patent it. Apple is the poster child for proving that isn't necessary.

Tim Fenton

this doesnt even make sense. to invent doesnt mean you make something it means "Create or design (something that has not existed before); be the originator of." hense the "design" part of the definition "be the originator of" ideas are inventions; therefore Steve Jobs was an inventor.

Patents don't make an inventor these days since you can patent any trivial shit.
I know most of the patents that Steve Jobs has.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-jobs-patents.html is a good list of them.
Not many of these are comparable to the works of Tesla or Edison. For example, look at the 1999 patent cursor control device. This wouldn't count as patent in most countries anyway, as it is about a specific design of something that already existed about 3 decades before the patent. If you subtract all those patents, how many are still left then?

Steve Jobs was great and an innovator, but not an inventor.

Chris

I would say Steve Jobs was an inventor.

No one said inventions could only be amazing, world-changing pieces of brand-new, never-before-seen technology. But whether 'new' or not, Steve Jobs did what so many infomercials couldn't: sell his ideas.

After all, how many patents can you claim?

Randy K

Was he sole author of any of the patents?

I work in the R&D dept. of an intellectual property company and know many managers with they're name on patents that they're only involvement was approving continued funding of the research.

Don't get me wrong, Steve was one of the leading business men of the last 30-40 if not the century, but he also had a history of claiming intellectual credit for others works.

That said, Rest in Peace sir.

Chris

Based on what the New York Times listed, Steve Jobs was not the sole author of those patents. But based on information and stories from Apple, he had a huge impact on the ideas. They may not have been wholly his own, but he was definitely more involved than simply approving funding, and in that regard, for a good many of them he deserves as much credit as anyone else.

Antonio

"Steve Jobs was probably the single greatest inventor to grace the world since Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla." Well said men

Ninpo

Yes, holding patents means you invented it. Google invented all that stuff they just bought from Motorola.

Greatest inventor since Edison/Tesla? Seriously? Surely you troll.

Macman

Yeah, I hate to disagree with someone giving praise to someone who just died but I wouldn't say he's the greatest since then... There are so many things that help people so much more than anything he ever did... BUT I would say he's one of if not the greatest techie entrepreneurs of our time :)

oliwek

you're right, he was a successfool entrepreneur, manager, he knew how to lead creative people and how to market a product. But he was not an inventor (even Wozniak wasn't, but he knew the tuch stuff Jobs didn't), and compare him to Edison or Tesla is a nonsense. He would have sold their inventions. That's all.
edit : the way he envisionned technology (closed market and devices, even censorship) was NOT a good thing for humanity
Sad he's dead at such an age though.

Steve Jobs authored 317 patents. As in, he contributed in large part to their contents.

Patents aren't just "given out" - Nikola Tesla held only 300 himself. Invention is not just the mechanical, physical constructs we seem to limit the notion to. Steve Jobs was a modern inventor, like Bill Gates, like Linus Torvald, like Steve Wozniak. Jobs saw the need for a tool, and he was able to fill it. That's what invention is.

Randy K

See my other earlier reply, but I do have to say if I said 'Patents aren't just "given out"' in my company's patents law office, they would laugh me right out of they're offices.

While that MAY have been true in Tesla's time, sadly it isn't universally true anymore... just look at the mess we're in with smart phone patents.

JayMonster

I think a better comparison would be Henry Ford rather than Edison, and I think this is where some of the contention comes from.

Like Ford, Jobs did not necessarily "invent new" but rather, "invent better." In other words he didn't invent the mousetrap, but rather invented the "better mouse trap."

(Now, whether or not they were actually "better," could be argued separately, he certainly "innovated." and that is indisputable, regardless of what you thought of him or the products he helped usher to market).

Jessy

Patents are given out to anybody who is wealthy and that pays for it. A patent for Apple or Microsoft because steve jobs was the salesman not an invortor just a innovator. Microsoft owns patents for windows 7 options that were on the KDE linux gui since 2001 they copied it and got it patented thats how it rolls now a days. You can rip some stuff off unknown and poor students in an opensource porject and claim it as yours if you have a big name and a company. Theres a reason why most linux stuff or stuff people make in there garage arn't patented and that when they sell it to a company they get it patented right away.

BachinPhx

Can you bastards at least put out the flames long enough to let this man Rest in Peace. Demonstrate just an IOTA of class here and cut the shit please!

Jack

Ok, sad when anyone dies but aren't some getting carried away with it? How can you mourn someone you never met or don't even know?

People die every day and some do more good to the World and don't get all this attention. There are Children starving to death, where is the RIP's etc for them? People have died at the hands of our Armed Forces , where are the RIP's for them?

Chris

Except that this isn't an NGO or veterans' website. That's not Android Police's purpose. AP is a tech blog. Not an Iraq journal.

Evan

R.I.P. Steve Jobs.

On a side note, why the trolling (or fanboyism) in the article? Just say he died, condolences, etc. Instead, people have to point out that he's not the greatest inventor since Edison (Not even in the top 1000). He didn't revolutionize computers, or anything really. Neither did Apple. Apple "innovates" through litigation, backroom deals, and outright stealing. I wish it had dropped dead instead of Jobs.

inspire (4g)

Look I love android, I hate apple
Steve jobs invented stuff, the last few years he was kind of a figure head.
Without him the world would be very different, in a way he's my hero, and he's not.
Thanks SJ, I hope you have fun playing angry birds forever

Tee

You hate Apple? Why? If you use Android, why is that a reason to hate Apple?

There are lots of people like you, way too many...

Jessy

LOOOOOOOOOOL dude get your facts right before the ipod touch came out there where already hundreds of touch screen mp3's. Steve jobs is by far the brain of apple all Apples early inventions where made by steve wozniak he was the brain and steve jobs had the charm and charisma to sell the products. Mcintosh computers were stolen too since the first ever build mcintosh pc was in 1979 by john mcintosh he was Canadian too.

Steve jobs had a big name and a big company just like Microsoft this is what allows them to pick up cheap and new technology like a cheap korean touchscreen phone with games or a stylus portable computer like the ipad and reinvent it and make it more user friendly and even there Steve jobs came up with some ideas he didn't reinvent things himself. After that with his big name and big company he came pay for commericals and advertise plenty thats something the guy with his friends or the small company couldn't do but steve jobs took those very unknown devices remade them and sold them as if it was him that created them.

Hooch

Apple has never invented anything. Please recall that Steve constantly talked about how great artists steal and he considered himself a great artist. Let's just stop. Sad when anyone dies, but let's not create more FUD than the iweanies will inevitably create.

cosmic

He didn't "constantly talk about" it you twit. He said it once, maybe twice at most and even then you're taking it out of context.

Bless his heart, he could sell glasses to a blind man. He was so NOT an inventor, nor was he *chuckle* the Da Vinci of our time. Greatest Marketing genius of our time? I would say yes, and THAT is the credit he deserves which is a lot.

MIke

Love or hate him, with him at the helm of Apple, they changed the face of consumer electronics. Our tech toys would not be the same with out him. For that I am grateful. My condolences to his family and friends. May he rest in peace.
As far as Apple suing everyone, that new in the last few years. And they are not the only ones doing it. That is the world we live in now.

Andrew – Des Moines

Jobs was a great CEO, a visionary, but not a great inventor.

PWRuser

With focus on mobile devices, neither Android nor iOS would have been what they are without him improving Apple within and Android through competition.

Seriously? A post in tribute to a great man and you start an argument about if he should be called an inventor or not?

Who the fuck cares. He did some very great things during his life, lets just show our respect for him instead.

Sometimes I think you people argue just for the sake of it...

Andy L

But, he didn't invent any of those things!

Why would you say that? It's just a goofy distraction on what should be a solemn or respectful post.

It's like saying "On April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died. He will always be remembered as the greatest athlete of our time."

Asd

"single greatest inventor to grace the world since Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla."

No.

Erik G

Wooooow!!! Thats crazy...

Darren

Steve was never an inventor and in the past has even said that. All of Apples products have started out from other technologies designed by other people.

What Steve was, was a very smart business man with the ability to predict what technologies would succeed and what would fail. He used those smarts to build devices around technologies that would succeed. Even with the very first Apple computer, Woz was the designer, Steve was the guy who made it successful.

Many of the patents Apple owns are from technologies that others had not patented. He, as any smart business person would do, took advantage of that.

He was not an inventor, but he was a guy who knew what technologies would be successful, built them into devices that would change peoples lives and the direction of technology itself.

I've never like a lot of the dirty business tactics Apple has used, but that's part of business. You can't really blame a guy on taking a company to the top.

George

Reading these comments makes me ashamed to be in the same group as some of you. He's dead, yet you have to beat a dead horse. Whining about being called an inventor or not.

Like him or hate him, he, and his company's(next & Apple) ideas help shaped the personal computer, and mobile devices. He was the face of the company that did invent a lot of amazing things. Don't get caught up in how best to humanize him. He's dead, let it go.

sagar makkar

Three Apples changed the world

(1) Adam's Apple
(2) Newton's Apple
(3) Steve Job's Apple
though i hate apple products but no can deny the fact that he was the one who revolutionized the smartphone market..
great man..love you Steve

" He did not revolutionize anything really" You are a moron. What about the I Phone. Think before you make a post like that...

Jessy

Ahh the iphone in 2001 there where touch screen cellphones. The iphone was just an improvment and of better quality of the beta touch screen phones with the same features.

OSX is based on Linux so its just like a new linux destribution with modifications really. But the worst part is that the imacs or any Mac computer was just the same as a desktop and same technology just 10x the price and people fell for it because it look cool and different.

Steve wozniak founded apple he was the brain and the programmer and steve jobs was the guy able to sell anything. Unless you didn't know in his young age him smoked alot of weed and did acid quite often.

Also bill gates and steve wozniak and steve jobs are great friends they grew up together thats why Microsoft bailed apple in 1990.

Apple is like Microsoft theres no invention there Just a Big Lie to cover up all the ideas they have stolen lol.

Dean

I wouldn't put Steve Jobs up there with Edison or Tesla. Apple didn't revolutionize by inventing any ground breaking technology.

There were MP3 players before the iPod, there were touch phones and phone apps before the iPhone, there were tablets before the iPad, and there were computers before Apple.

What Jobs and Apple did that was ground breaking was make technology easier to use. They made it accessible. They also made technology look good.
May Steve Jobs rest in peace. I wonder how successful Apple will be without him.

azumihk

Steve Dead, Apple dead.

Time to make a new brand

Banana anyone ?

iBanana hahahaha

well RIP STEVE

Geoff

I am sad to hear of Steve Jobs death he was a clever bloke who gave those of us sad enough to care about tech plenty to argue about!

Not one of Apples products has done anything that others had not done before, I think Steve Jobs greatest contribution to Apple was selling the media and Apple customers the concept of form and above all hype over function.

Mark

Some of those Jobs patents look Mickey Mouse! Packaging and "ornamental look" of laptops?! You are shitting me! Compare with Tesla's invention of A/C power system which you use today, or the first tunable radio patent, or VTOL aircraft, or the AND logic gate (precursor to Shockley's transistor) in a radio patent, types of motor, types of engine, research into wireless power, etc.
Jobs can keep the patent for that nasty hockey puck mouse that nobody could use and everybody hated. Just so long as nobody claims that he invented the computer mouse, which was done several decades before his tribute to ice hockey.
Jobs would compare with Edison, to be fair: as with Edison, other people did most of the inventing (or packaging! jeez!) and he put his name to the patents.
Sorry that he has gone, but let's not lose our perspective here on the subject of useful invention.

RockingmyEvo3D

Definitely a sad conclusion something he couldn't have wanted to happen. My heartfelt condolences to his family, apple, and coworkers.

Bill Tylor

Steve Jobs isn't really dead, the nurses are just holding him the wrong way.

jay

Well put, he wasn't apple but rather he took things that were there and made them better, the tech world won't be the same. Without him we wouldn't have our android toys.

Thorn

Yeah, Steve was really good at making people think they need to pay for a highly overpriced small white object that plays music.

In response most sensible people realized there was a wide open market for a less expensive object with more functionality.

See iPad vs. just about any other tablet...

Also, if iOS 5 is really Skynet, wouldn't Skynet kill off it's creator first before attempting take over? We should monitor this situation closely... (yes, this is a joke...maybe)

LaserKRAFT

"Steve Jobs was not Apple. Steve Jobs was an inventor. Steve Jobs was probably the single greatest inventor to grace the world since Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla."
As much as iLove Steve Jobs, it was Wozniak that built the machines. Steve was an enterprising genius who had unmatched visionary abilities to pioneer an industry.
Apple took Xerox's 10 year old technology and made it better.
As far as comparing him to Ediston and Nikola Tesla, I'm afraid you're mixing apples with electricity grids.
Next time try to understand the relationships between that slithering slime ball Edison and mankind's greatest scientific mind, Nikola Tesla.

Edison was a compulsive manipulator and degenerate liar, stealing other people's ideas to turn a profit. He had ego issues and couldn't understand most of what Tesla was up to.